Management Consultant for Used Book Business - Case Study Example

Management Consultant for Used Book Business A research by Book Industry Study Group, Inc indicates that used book business has registered sales of $2.2 million and more than 111 million books were sold in 2004. The sales of used book now comprise 8.4% of the total book sales in the United States. The used book business is conducted through store and online sales and major consumers are students. Other than educational books, used books sell more in the religious, professional, adult trade genres.

While sale of educational books have registered a 7% growth in comparison to the previous year, non educational used book sale has grown by 25% and the online sale of used book has grown by 33%. The used book business is tapping the huge potential of consumers available through the internet. All the positive sales growth figures are combined by high levels of consumer satisfaction evoked by word of mouth campaign. The used book business brings together printers, libraries, e-publishers and publishers, authors, retailers, wholesalers, e-retailers and all organizations related to the book community (Rapid Growth in Used Book Market).

The used book business should decide on the amount of compensation through benchmarking (the amount to be paid) and packaging (the method of payment).   Two main factors that contribute to the success of a business is by connecting rewards with performance and customized rewards to suit the performance of specific individuals. Retention of employees can be substantiated basically through job satisfaction and merging the employee with the organization. Retention policies would emphasis on optimizing three kinds of satisfaction: social, personal and professional.

Job satisfaction of employees can be assured through recognition, communication, flexibility and future orientation. Managers are required to study employment policies that include hiring of individual for retention, compensating new recruits reasonably, planning a customized career graph, offer challenging and interesting work to the new recruit, provide a conducive work setting to improve employee satisfaction and finally communication is the word for employee performance and retention (Strategies for Managing IS/IT Personnel).

At the used book store supervisors and managers usually come across poor or unsatisfactory performance which comprises poor attendance or poor attention at work. These circumstances should be dealt in the interest of all involved including the employees, morale at workplace and the level of quality at workplace. Poor performance is related to various factors like inadequate motivation, improper instruction or training, inadequate ability of the person or health problem of the person which reflects in the performance.

While certain cases are temporary, some problems cause a longstanding adverse effect on the business. Therefore timely investigation into the reason for poor performance and requisite measures should be taken by the used book store to provide guidance and support for the employees to revive the situation and perform productive work. This will enable employees to achieve the goals set by the business and perform at satisfactory levels. If employees tend to perform poorly even after the intervention of the management necessary action should be taken that may result in termination of the job on the grounds of incapability, misconduct or any other material reason as applicable.

Incapability to work should be applied after considering reason adjustments by equipping the person with requisite devices to perform efficient work. The immediate manager of the employee or the proprietor of the business should make sure that all employees are aware of their role and level of performance. There should be routine check on performance, attendance of staff and standards so that problems can be identified at initial stage and resolved without much complications through informal methods.

The employer should communicate all tasks regular and update the employees about priorities and maintain a warm working environment to raise and solve problems. A case to case analysis and evaluation is required to improve the performance of employees at the used book store. The employee should be given an opportunity to explain the factors that contribute to poor performance and then given a chance to prove. The plan to improve performance despite providing good salaries can be drafted by requiring employees to make improvement within a specified time at expected standards of the used book store.

Failure to achieve even at this stage should be communicated through a formal warning. Therefore poor performance can be solved through clear and open dialogue with the employees and support and guidance related to specific circumstances. Following this method would result in progress and positive growth of the business (Management Guidelines). Reference  Management Guidelines for Dealing with Cases of Poor Performance or Lack of Capability. Available: http://www.wmin.ac.uk/page-484 Rapid Growth in Used Book Market Driven by the Internet.

Available: http://www.bisg.org/news/press.php?pressid=29 Strategies for Managing IS/IT Personnel. Available: http://books.google.com/books?id=kzaIbkzhs1gC&pg=PA13&dq=Maximizing+Employee+Retention+and+Job+Satisfaction&lr=